There were also many other arguments in favor of women’s suffrage. Working laws in Britain were seen to discriminate against women. Women worked long hours in factories. Men could vote in order to change this, by the early 1900s, however women didn’t have this luxury. Suffrage campaigners pointed out that Marriage laws were unfair to women. Until 1870 a women couldn’t keep her possessions because her husband owned everything. A divorce could only be obtained through and act of Parliament and women couldn’t divorce for the same reasons as men. Women were also fed up with their status in society. Some wanted to rid themselves of “the angel in the house” generalization and open the road to women’s freedom. The simplest way for women to do this was to obtain the vote as it would give women freedom to make their own decisions.
All of the reasons listed above contributed to the creation of the WSPU but it was the failure to make any progress using peaceful and legal methods that was a central cause for it’s formation. It was then that Emmeline, Christabel and Sylvia Pankhurst decided that the creation of a more forceful and aggressive party was what the movement needed in order to really get noticed by the government.
Another reason was the debate on 12 May 1905 when the Conservatives talked out a bill for voted for women. Emmeline Pankhurst and others realized how easy it was for MPs to use the Commons procedures to withstand the bill. When they tried to hold a meeting outside, their names were taken down by the police.
A third reason was the growing lack of support from the Labor party. As the elections drew closer they began to pay less attention to votes for women. Partly because they felt there were more issues to concentrate on but also because votes for women was not going to win them any seats in the next election. Furthermore, the labor leaders believed that if women were granted the right to vote, many would be more likely to vote Conservative, which posed as a threat to them.
In conclusion there were many factors which contributed to the formation of the WSPU which involved long term and short term reasons. The long term reasons were that women were fed up with their place in society and wanted the power to control laws which affected them. The short term reasons were that some women were fed up with the peaceful methods of the NUWSS which appeard to be making little affect, the unfair abolition of a bill in 1905 and the growing lack of support from the Labor party.